


Our Little Ghoul

by BrooklynBugleBoy



Series: Another One Bites At Dusk [3]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: F/F, F/M, First Love, Full Moons, Growing Up, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Little Girl became a Woman, Love, Meeting the Family, Meeting the Parents, Multi, Polyamory, Supernatural Elements, Trans Character, Useless Lesbians, Vampires, Werewolves, big families, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 07:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16850158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrooklynBugleBoy/pseuds/BrooklynBugleBoy
Summary: Taking your girlfriend to meet the parents is always weird and nerve-wracking.When you're bringing your girlfriend into a monster's nest, it's a fair bit harder. On a full-moon night."Oh God, Sammy.Please don’t hate me when one of my fathers eats you."Everyone needs to thank @notbutseriouslywhat for this messy little drabble, he is the reason this is here and gave me so many ideas that its honestly ridiculous. <333





	Our Little Ghoul

**Author's Note:**

> Note: These are fictional characters, not the real people. Duh. None of this actually happened. 
> 
> Featuring "Crazier Than You" from The Addams Family Musical

“ _I wanna treasure you in death as well as life_  
_I wanna cut you with my love and with my knife_  
_But can I live as your tormentor and your wife…._

 _When I am crazier than you_  
_I'm crazier than you_  
_And nothing up ’til now has proved me wrong_  
_I'm crazier than you_  
_That's just the overview_  
_So get on board or simply move along…”_

 

  
Mikey straightened her skirt in the mirror for what felt like the thousandth time.

_(Was this outfit too booby? The other one made her look like a nun! And the one before it made her look like she was still in primary school! Ugh!)._

Not for the first time, she wished she could be Robbie, her older brother with all his witchy powers could just look into his crystal ball and discern the future. Without having to live through it.

She, unfortunately, was violently and purposefully human. She hadn’t begged the bite off any of her vampiric parents or werewolf uncles, hadn’t sold her soul to a demon, been born with shapeshifting cat powers or had a selkie pelt buried in the backyard. No. Mikey Deacon _(Taylor-Mercury-May)_ , was perfectly ordinary. Her family just happened to be less so.

And now she was throwing Sam right into the thick of it.

_Oh God, Sammy._

_Please don’t hate me when one of my fathers eats you._

A sudden set of knocks shook the bathroom door. Making her jump up in surprise. The sort of knocks that sounded like they had come from a pair of tiny balled up fists. “Mikey!” And a second staccato beat, with a whiny and shriller: _“Mikeyyy!”_ As if the caller were being brutally murdered outside her seashell-encrusted bathroom door.

She rolled her eyes to the heavens, it was Rory and Lulu, it had to be, the preteen hellions that they were. Mikey would’ve known those pissy little cries anywhere. Her adorably awful younger sisters who were anything but tolerable. They were constantly playing with her clothes and makeup, and sometimes worse. _(Like that time they stole all her bras and gave them to the boys… who used them as slingshots.)_

Jesus, there were other bathrooms in this godforsaken house!

 _This_ was exactly why she was going to move in with Sammy. They’d been planning it for months. _(She’d never loved anyone more and it was the next big step in their relationship.)_

But every time she brought up leaving, moving out, starting her own life outside the protective little family bubble. Her Froggie always looked so wounded and Bapuji would buy her a beautiful new dress, compete with chiffon and the most to-die-for ruffles, doing up her hair to match. Phoebe would make her favorite foods for dinner, Dad would buy her some new strings for her bass.

As if trying to bribe her to stay, to not grow up and leave them behind.

As if they thought the very moment she stepped past the threshold, she would be lost to the sands of time. Lost to them forever. Even though the reality was anything but, she loved them more than anything in the world. Losing them would be like willfully tearing out a piece of her soul.

_(She couldn’t imagine a day without Felix’s smile. A day without surprise cat ears or a jaguar cuddled up in her lap. A day without her Dads singing and playing around the house. Chasing each other around like primary school children. Froggie and Bapuji calling out AYO! across the house in order to find each other. Froggie washing Brimi’s hair in the sink upstairs, just because he could. Brimi walking around the house with Dad on his back because he found the heartbeat soothing. Dad letting Bapuji steal all the covers on the couch._

_A love that was decades old, but that had never died)._

She remembered telling them the truth about herself.

About who she was.

That Mikey Deacon was and had always been _their daughter._

Dad hadn’t understood at first, not until she’d explained it in terms that he could understand. But he had still loved her, just as much as before. Never once saying anything to hurt or degrade her. She was his child and his beloved baby girl. He would come into her room for weeks afterward, while she was sleeping and shake her awake softly, because he’d thought of another question, or something he had done wrong a million years ago that might have hurt her.

_“And I’m so sorry I called you my son that time when you were six, does it still bother you? Do you remember it? I’m so sorry, princess, I…”_

She loved him for it. Her _precious_ Dad.

Bapuji had just shrugged it off, although he did apologize quite a few times for misgendering her accidentally. Then he had rolled out all the girl’s clothes that he’d been stockpiling till the baby girls were old enough. “I knew God was real, he gave me the most perfect little girl to dress up! Right now!” She’d rolled her eyes. But had acquiesced anyway.

He was so tender and soft about it, telling her how beautiful she was. Learning the most intricate hairstyles for her and painting her nails any color she wanted. _Orange like a sunset, mahogany brown, sea-foam green…_

Brimi had simply nodded, like he’d known all along, and then read about it for weeks on end, whole shelves full of books. Repeatedly asking her if there was anything she needed, dysphoria-wise. She loved her smart Papa. He gave the best cuddles, holding her close when she had to cry, sobbing so hard her body quaked like it was all falling apart. He also made the best hot cocoa and would sit up with her when she couldn’t sleep, telling her all about the stars in the sky.

Froggie had just hugged her tight, protecting her from the world.

“ _You are my little girl, my darling little girl.”_

The validation was enough to leave her sobbing into his too-warm chest, a heart beating away like automatic rapid-fire gunshots underneath his ribcage. The man who had raised her to know things no other girls did. How to protect herself from the things that went bump in the night. But left her sobbing from the sheer influx of love. Uncle Jim had been right. Her family was her family and they would never ever desert her.

The knocks were getting more and more desperate, so she swung open the door with a sharp sigh, arms crossed.

“What do you two want?”

Rory had a mirrored scowl on her features, wearing her white bathrobe like a lab-coat again, Ms. Future _(Monster)_ Doctor. Lulu was dressed as her usual nurse, hat and all.

“We need the first-aid kit! Uncle Phoebe and Uncle Joe have to _Change_ tonight.”

Mikey froze, as though her brain were a scratched record.

“What? _Tonight_ ’s the full moon?!”

The girls nodded, confused at her shock, Turnings and the Change were normal for their family, and yet there she was, running down the stairs as fast as she could in her high-heels, practically diving for their rotary phone. Maybe she could stop Sammy before she got there? Sam couldn’t come on a Change night! Not a full-moon! Sure, they always locked up her uncles in the basement and they’d only _gotten out_ a few times, it should be safe. Theoretically.

_Oh God._

The dial tone prophesied her doom.

Sam had already left.

Fuck.

Maybe she could convince her girlfriend to go out for a movie instead? A fancy dinner?

_(Not likely. They’d been together for years and Sam insisted on meeting her family tonight. Saying that she had some important stuff to talk to them about. Honestly, her defenseless saccharine-sweet accountant girlfriend should have been terrified by the mere thought.)_

_Who wants to walk into a monsters’ nest?_

_Samara Căpreanu, that’s who._

_Oh God, Sammy why now?_

Mikey nearly ended up on her ass, full of inner turmoil, as her army of little brothers ran by. Poor scared Joshie was being chased by Jimmy, Luke, Felix and even little Cam, who was sitting perched up on Jimmy’s back. _Oh Joshie_ … The tiny kid was afraid of his own shadow, so he was often an easy target for all their games.

And being terrorized didn’t exactly help his self-confidence.

“Play nice!” She barked after them, only getting a chorus of raspberries and a muffled shriek in response. Great. So they’d probably shoved Joshie into the dryer again. _Sigh._

“I swear to God if you hurt Joshie, no pudding after dinner!” She bellowed at the top of her lungs and got several grumbles back, along with a muffled _‘thanks, Mikey!’._

Idiots. Her brothers were actual idiots.

She rolled her eyes and continued freaking out quietly, contemplating putting her fist through the drywall just to de-stress.

A situation only narrowly avoided, by her harried Dad catching sight of her and dragging her into the kitchen to help with dinner. Well, to help with carrying out the plates to arrange them on the dinner table, it was barely big enough to fit them all.

Phoebe and Joe were already down below, napping in the basement until night fell. _(They were usually the ones who took care of dinner, which explained why her Dad looked so rough)._

“So Dad,” She gnawed on her bottom lip as she arranged the candles just-so, moving the raw steaks so they were hidden by the lavender-scented wax and what was probably a salad. But Bapuji had made it, so there was probably aconite accidentally mixed in or something. He’d almost killed Phoebe like that once. Oh Bapuji and his hereditary death attributes. “Did you remember that I’m bringing a _friend_ to dinner tonight?”

Her father’s brow furrowed, he looked quite comical with the silver hair and the pink frilly apron, _(one of Froggie’s)._

“A friend? Are you sure honey, it’s not really a good night for it.”

Dad was trying to save a _blueberry?_ pie one of the kids had ripped a clump out of.

“I know, Dad.” She let her eyes fall and sighed softly. “I didn’t realize it was going to be a full moon and she’s already on her way. Please, Dad, I just _need_ this to go well.” There was something in her voice. Something heavy and afraid. And for a girl raised by monsters, that was a bit disarming.

She was about to get teary into the mashed potatoes and her father could see it in her face.

“Sure. I’ll talk to Fred, Rog and Bri, okay? I’m sure we can manage to be normal for one night.”

Well, as normal as their family ever got.

Mikey bounced on the balls of her feet and gave him a hug so tight it was probably on the verge of suffocating him. He merely grunted and held on with all his might, being a real trooper about it. “No problem, baby girl. But… Why this is so important to you?”

He sounded so concerned and Mikey could only smile from ear-to-ear. “Because she’s important to me. _I love her, Dad._ ”

John Deacon choked.

 

-X-

 

Sam, after too much fucking deliberation, decided on a light cornflower blue button-up shirt and khakis.

Nobody ever got murdered by their girlfriend’s parents in khakis.

… _Right?_

Fuck. She was about to walk straight into a house full of the monsters, the same sort of Halloween-y monsters that she grew up believing weren’t real. Monsters who were actually just as real as the calculator in her backpack and the stack of work she’d yet to complete in her office. Oh holy shit.

Speaking of, she usually wore a cross around her neck, but decided to not to tonight. You know, on account of the vampire-thing. Sammy was about 85% sure that Mikey’s Dads _(hyper, adorable Mikey with her light brown hair and freckles, whose smile made Sam feel like she was on a roller-coaster)_ wouldn’t burst into flames on sight, but she didn’t want to offend them either way.

Oh shit, she was probably going to puke in a bush or something on the front lawn.

It was like college all over again.

The ring _(a black diamond with several smaller white diamonds encrusted around it, that made the setting open up just like a flower)_ burning a hole in her pocket.

What if they said _no?_

What if Mikey didn’t say _yes?_

 

-X-

 

For Mikey, opening up the door to see her lovely girlfriend waiting there, made everything worth it.

She walked straight into her lover’s arms. Sam’s kinky cinnamon curls tickled her nose and made her smile despite herself. Those dimples made the world go round.

Despite the fact that the moon was full, round and rising grimly in the sky, harbinging only the worst to come, and the foreboding fact that The Change had come upon her home. While held tight in Sammy's arms, she was safe and warm, a startling contrast to it all.

The howls in the distance only made that more abundantly clear.

“Of course you had to pick the night of a full-moon.” Mikey chided into that cute button-up shirt. She could feel the way her darling dear froze beneath her hands. “What?” Then looking up. “Oh shit. Oh God, Mikes is this a bad time? I can come back? Aren’t your uncles going to be all… _hairy?”_

Poor Sammy looked so sorry that she was putting anyone out, and it was enough to make Mikey flash that cherry-bomb smile. _God, I love you._

“Don’t worry we keep them locked up downstairs. In the dungeon.” At Sam’s stricken look, she amended herself. “I mean torture chamber.” The look only got worse. “Basement! I meant _basement!_ ” Mikey flashed a sheepish smile.

Playing it cool.

As cool as a forest fire.

“Anyway, come in!”

She swung the door wide open and pulled her ever-patient girlfriend inside, and right into the path of the hungry jaguar pacing on the foyer rug.

Oh. _Joy._

The wild beast roared for all it was worth, glaring them down and flashing its horrifying canine teeth like it was about to be on the prowl. Jaguars possessed the strongest bite of any big cat. Poor Sam shrank back slightly, shivering in muted fear. _Okay, that tears it._ Mikey glared straight back, hands on her hips as she scolded.

“Rufus, go sit the hell down and eat your dinner. Now. And quit scaring my guest!”

The metamorphosis was immediate, watching her scowling little brother’s face take shape, at the same moment the visage of the big cat faded away. She would never understand the seamless nagual transformation. Not when she knew that of the lycanthrope brought so much pain to the people she loved. Poor Uncle Phoebe and Uncle Joe went through unspeakable agony with every single Change. Tearing off chunks of their own skin and feeling it as their bones shattered and reshaped themselves. Completely out of their control.

Little Rufus Tiger was pouting as usual. “No fair! I didn’t know! I was protecting you, dummy!”

The tiny blonde with his bared milk-teeth was hardly a threat. Cute and adorable maybe, but not a threat.

“Consider me saved, kitten, now go.”

She felt Sammy’s hand intertwine with her own. The warmth that bloomed between them was as bright as the late summer’s sun in the sky.

“Ready?”

“Always.”

For you I’d do anything.

The table was full of overfilled mouths and wandering hands. Bapuji was sitting in Brimi’s lap, drinking from a wineglass full of AB- his new favorite.

Brimi was eating what looked like bites of burnt veggie lasagna between sensual kisses. Froggie was feeding little Lola May who seemed to have made it her sole goal in life to get food onto the ceiling, one way or another. Her Mum was trying to corral the smaller kiddos. Auntie Dom was thumb-warring with a determined little Felix. Two brutal kids were duking it out under the table, although she wasn’t sure which ones. Dear old Dad was _Wine-Moming_ it up in the kitchen between plates, triggered by the stress of Sam’s arrival no doubt. And the fact that nobody wanted to eat his cheesy yams.

Oh and the choked animalistic howls coming from the basement were the undercurrent of it all.

“Everybody!”

She called, and nothing changed, so she put on her mad bitchy voice.

_**“EVERYBODY!”** _

Several heads snapped up all at once. Felix finally beat Auntie Dom at thumb war.

“Everybody, this is _Sam._ Sam, this is _my family.”_

_It’s messy and we’re all probably a bit deranged. But there’s nothing and nobody that I love more in the whole world. Please, like them too._

_Please like her too._

“Um, hi everybody? It’s nice to meet you. Mikey’s told me a lot about you.”

Sammy, trying her best to not piss her pants.

Froggie passed the toddler in his lap over to a grimacing Robbie in order to extend a hand. Smiling that elongated-fanged smile that meant he was hungry, or plain pissed off. Looking like a monster that had crawled out of the black lagoon with his true features, bat-nose and all. Those blood red eyes traced her every movement and looked like they were inches away from tearing open her throat to find the treasure buried there. Mikey resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“Hello, I’m Roger Taylor.”

Dagger-sharp nails dug into Sam’s hand, just increments away from breaking the skin.

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

Sammy squeaked, still smiling.

Her lovely little math nerd, trying her best, Mikey was entirely _too smitten._

After that harrowing experience, things went as well as you might expect.

By that she meant they went _terribly._

Bapuji tried at first, she had to give him that. But well…

“So, Samantha darling, how did you meet our little Mikey?”

“Uh, its um… _Samara_ actually. And I was completing at the bicentennial Math Bowl, she was the announcer. We’ve been together ever since.”

A pointed cough. “And by together you mean?”

“Girlfriends.”

“Ah.” Bapuji looked inches away from burying his fork into her neck. Shit. Moving on! “Delightful, dear. Just like your O- blood, that I can smell from over here” Fuck. Mikey was going to cry, she was honestly going to burst into tears.

Jim was up in an instant. “Biscuits, anyone?” But no life-preserver could save them now.

Brimi tried too.

“And what do you do, Sam? Job-wise? Do you dabble in the occult?”

“I’m… an accountant? So some people think we do?” A nervous laugh.

Oh geez.

“What kind of rock-and-roll do you listen to?”

Thanks Dad, ever-so-helpful. Let me just go outside and dig my grave.

“Oh. I’m, really not a fan to be honest. It all sounds the same to me. But I like Mikey’s bass playing.” It would’ve saved them, if she hadn’t pronounced _bass_ like the fish.

Better dig two.

“And has Mikey met your parents, Sam?” Oh, man. It just kept getting worse and worse.

“Yeah, I’ve brought her by the graveyard.”

Dead silence abounded. _(Terrible, terrible pun)._

“They uh, died when I was two. So I don’t really remember them, I was raised in care.”

Mikey mimed banging her head against the table, until she could pretend that her brain was oozing out through her ears like a faucet.

“So you don’t have a family?” Wow, _Felix why?_ I thought you loved me, you wicked little imp. Mikey was incredulous. But the little boy was looking over so innocently with his single-sighted bloody red eye and her sweet doting Sam just smiled at him, shaking her head of bouncy cinnamon ringlets. “Now I wouldn’t say that.”

She reached out a hand, prompting Mikey to lay hers there too. “I have Mikes. She’s my family and the best thing to ever happen to me.” The brunette felt her face flush as bright as a tinsel and light-laced christmas tree, or the unbroken skin of a fresh red apple. Sammy really did love her, just as much as Mikey loved her. And that was something truly incredible.

She was just about to return the sentiment when an ominous crash sounded throughout the house and the unholy endless cries of the beasts down below… grew quiet.

Oh shit.

“Are they alright?” Sammy sounded scared.

Froggie stood up instantly and made a beeline for the basement door, all white-blonde hair, soft features and feral crimson eyes glinting, his gaze turned animalistic in the lowlight. Sometimes she forgot just how inhuman her fathers really were.

How and why the world regarded them as monsters.

When Froggie reappeared, it was with a steely look on his ordinarily gentle features. “Freddie, Jim, Robbie and Dom, with me.” The second part, he whispered, though it was obvious everyone knew what he said, “ _Phoebe’s gotten out again._ ”

 _A-hunting we will go,_  
_A-hunting we will go_  
_We'll catch a fox and put him in a box_  
_And never let him go…_

The childhood nursery rhyme that they used to sing as they played in the garden, swirled around and around in her head, until she jumped up from her seat, at the same time as her Dad and Brimi, both sharing the same stubborn look of: _You aren’t going anywhere without us, Roggie._

She turned to her lovely Sammy, knowing full well that what she was about to do would probably get her dumped by the only girl ever brave enough to stick around. “I’m going out with them to look for Uncle Phoebe, when he hides on the Moors, its almost impossible to find him before morning without at least a dozen hands.” _We do not need a repeat performance of An American Werewolf in London._

Sammy nodded slowly, her dark eyes swollen as big as the moon above with worry. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, I mean… he’s a werewolf?”

“He prefers the term _lycanthrope_.” Mikey reached down to get the knife always strapped to her thigh, but finding it tangled up once more. Ugh. Why were dresses always so bloody difficult to carry proper weaponry with?

“Sammy, love, I think my blade’s stuck, would you mind?”

Her girlfriend’s nimble fingers traced up her round and soft pink leg, until they reached the point of difficulty. “Oh, I think it’s the Hello Kitty garter belt that the problem.” Bugger. How else was she going to get it to stay attached without a garter?

But talented Sammy managed to free it and get the long silver blade into Mikey’s hands once again.

The tiny huntress pressed a kiss to her girlfriend’s brow. “Won’t be long, love.”

Then followed all four of her fathers into the fray.

Listening to them bicker like the old married biddies they were.

“Bri, Deaks, I told you to stay inside.”

“Oh, so you control us now?”

“ _Deaky_ …”

“What just because you’ve got some pointy teeth and an attitude problem? Suddenly that makes you the boss of everyone?”

“Loves, come off it, don’t fight! We just need to find Feebie, alright? That’s our main problem right now. Deaky, Bri, you have to promise to stay behind us during any sort of confrontation, and Roger will try his best to be less of a bossy-boots. Won’t you, dear?”

“…. _Yes, Freddie.”_

Damn. Bapuji had his men whipped.

 

-X-

 

Mikey hadn’t realized that Sammy had followed her, until they were at least two miles deep into the soft squishy mud of the English countryside. Eventually, after the yelling because _Oh my God, it’s dangerous out here, Sammy what the fuck are you doing?!_   they walked through it together, hand in hand.

They had split from her Dads a few minutes earlier, still squabbling as usual _(she was pretty it was how they showed their love. That and lots and lots of sex. She had grown up knowing full well just how haunted their house was)_ , Robbie had gone another way entire, blue flames licking up his skin, and so had Uncle Jim and Auntie Dom.

She was honestly hoping, beyond it all, that _anyone else_ would find Phoebe lurking in the darkness, that mindless being that had once been her sweet and loving uncle.

The one who loved them all more than anything in the world. Who had often held her up on his hip as they cooked together in the kitchen, making pancakes for the family. Who blew raspberries into her cheeks to make her laugh as a little girl. The one who let her ballroom dance by standing on the tops of his feet. 

That same _kind loving man turned mindless bloody monster_ , flung himself from the darkness.

Teeth bared and body low to the ground as those empty eyes followed their every move.

Seeing Phoebe look at her like that. Seeing the parent she loved so much, turned emotionless and soulless. Everything he naturally  _wasn’t._ She couldn’t help it. She broke the cardinal rule of staring down a werewolf. Of staring down any beast of the dark world.

_Never scream._

Phoebe came at her like he was about to rip open her chest and eat her like an oyster.

It was easy to forget that lycanthropes were _wolves_ at heart.

Pack hunters the size of ancient dire-wolves.

On nights that weren't full-moons, the wolf that was Phoebe would recognize her as a pup. One of its children, and would treat her accordingly. But the monster on this night, would look at her and see a usurper, a threat. The shine of her blade in the moonlight didn't help. Mikey was a trained human huntress, but that's all she was, _human_. She couldn't fight the beast by herself, she wasn't foolish enough to think that she could. She was already dead, the moment the beast charged. 

Or she _would've_ been...

If it hadn’t been for Sammy, dedicated, endlessly loyal Sammy, who came at an angry werewolf with nothing but a big stick and the need to get between it and her girlfriend.

Sam’s bloodcurdling screams would forever echo in her ears.

 _“Sammy!”_ She wailed without realizing she was doing so, unblinking, horrified, she couldn't stop watching as the creature mauled her lover. Mikey didn’t have to be a monster to taste the tang of blood in the air, all she had to do was...

She _ran_ at the uncle she loved, screaming at the top of her lungs like a demon, with her silver knife ablaze and eyes bleary with unshed tears.

Her Dads came in like a whirlwind.

Uncle Jim was the one who heaved her away from Sammy, holding her as she screamed for her girlfriend. All she could see was _blood_. Nothing but Sam’s human blood all over the ground, soaking into her clothes, into the dark grass. She puked up nothing but spittle and clear vomit. Uncle Jim’s arms, that had always been her sanctuary, her point of refuge, were suddenly a straitjacket.

She _screamed._

So loud and so forcefully that it felt like her lungs would burst.

It still wasn’t enough.

 

-X-

 

“It was just a few scratches, princess.”

Sam crooned into her hair.

Her left arm all bandaged up, having taken the brunt of the beast. “I won’t even _Change_ because of it, your Dads promised.”

“You still got hurt because of me.”

“No, I got hurt because I thought a _big stick_ would scare away a lycanthrope.”

Mikey rolled her eyes and pressed another kiss to the corner of her girlfriend’s mouth. “I’m going to pop off and get you some more ice.” Another kiss before she was off on her sacred mission of redundancy. Leaving Sam to play with the soft kitties that Mikey’s family seemed to have a million of. There was one in particular, a chubby little tortoiseshell that seemed to have taken a keen interest in her.

Nudging at her bandage with a little wet nose and purring up a storm like she, her kitty highness, was the most important person in the room. Sometimes torties were just like that, Sammy supposed.

“You know, I have no idea how I even got here?” She was a touch woozy from the blood loss. “All I wanted to do was ask permission to propose to her.”

She felt it as the tortie stiffened, like the moment right before a hairball, and then suddenly it was Freddie Mercury who was in her lap, naked as the day he was born but that wasn't the primary problem... he looked bloody _infuriated_. _“SAY WHAT, DARLING?! YOU CAME HERE TO WHAT?!”_

Sam screamed. Oh how she screamed.

Mikey dropped her bag of ice.

Sammy wanted to curl up and die. Wishing the werewolf had met his mark. She’d forgotten that vampires could shape-shift… rats, bats, cats, mist, you name it. _Fuck._

“You came to ask their permission to…?” Sam nodded, quietly. Eyes downcast.

“Oh.” Mikey’s face was as red as could be. “Well. You don’t need anyone’s permission but mine. So _ask. Now.”_

“Excuse me, young lady! But she _very much needs_ my permission!” Her Bapuji shrieked, sounding almost as high-pitched as Froggie in all his shock. But they both elected to ignore him. Smart move and all.

Sam dragged the ring out of her pocket with bloodless, trembling fingers. Opening the small golden clasp and flicking it open to reveal the ring she’d spent ages picking out.

“Mikey Deacon, you are the reason I get up every morning, you are the sun in my sky. Ever since the day I met you, all I’ve ever wanted was to wake up every morning with you beside me. You are the most exceptional person I have ever met. Not because of where you came from, although I’m sure this extraordinary family had something to do with it. But because you don’t kill spiders, you set them free. And watching you run on sand at the beach is the most adorable thing. And because I have been able to rely on maths for most of my life. I have been able to quantify everything that’s ever been important to me, but you…”

She shook her head, crying like the baby she was. “Mikey, my love for you is the only thing in the world that I have never been able to understand because it has no end. My love for you is impervious to math, so there can only be one solution.”

She gulped. Holding the ring up to the light, looking at Mikey’s shiny eyes and their peanut gallery.

_“Will you marry me?”_

Mikey gasped, her trembling hands covering her mouth as she cried.

“….Give me a second!”

Mikey dove for the stairs, racing up to her bedroom for all it was worth.

 _“Mikey?!”_ Sam’s voice cracked and she already sounded heartbroken. As if she wasn’t going to come back or something. That would not do.

Mikey found what she was looking for at the bottom of her dresser. And she was racing back back downstairs in an instant, chest heaving and cheeks flushed as she finally answered.

“Yes! But…” She popped open the clasp on her little red box to expose the old opal ring inside. “ _Only if you will marry me?”_

The ring had been a gift from her Bunic, dear sweet grandfather Vlad and she had promised to use it wisely. Well. She’d found a use for it. Sammy deserved an engagement ring too.

Her goddess burst into tears as Mikey slid the ring onto her hand. “Now, it’s just a place-holder until we can find one better…” Sam’s ring slid onto her finger like a dream and when they kissed, it was like everything else melted away. Like they were all that ever mattered.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Each one a promise.

Feeling a foreign pair of strong arms wrap around her waist and drag her backwards into the dining room hadn’t been part of the plan. Nor the Dad who locked the door, leaving her poor fiancé alone on the floor. Perfect. Her wonderful family strikes yet again.

Who all looked at her in various states of shock and malaise.

“Okay.” She shoved off her Froggie and spun around to glare at them all. Hands perched on her hip as usual. “What the hell?” _I just got engaged, you assholes!_

Brimi was sputtering, his warm cocoa eyes as wide as could be. Gnawing on his bottom lip and wringing his hands like he’d just done something wicked. “Mikey, you can’t just…”

As usual, Froggie finished for him, her dhampir Dad the hypocrite. Who could stand in front Mikey and talk about how she was too young to get married, or that she couldn’t marry Sam because she wasn’t ready and how they didn’t really know her at all. When he had committed himself to Brimi, Bapuji and Dad when he was younger than she. Running away from home to join a rock band. Bloody hypocrite.

Dad, surprisingly enough, didn’t say anything.

He just looked down, arms crossed. His silver hair on full display.

As everyone else freaked the fuck out.

The smaller kids started crying, begging her not to leave. Which set off Joshie. Who hugged her around the middle so tight she thought she was going to die. Robbie was awash in blue flames, and he looked like he was talking to someone under his breath. Probably his demon sugar-daddy. _(Amy was cool though, fun at parties)._

She stomped her foot, eyes shooting more flames from them than Robbie’s pasty skin.

“Why don’t you want me to be happy?”

Her voice cracked and she couldn’t help the tears that burned in her eyes.

“Sammy makes me so happy. We’ve been together for years, and she’s stuck with me through everything! She wanted to meet you guys, even when I told her that most of us were a lot more than just human. Because she knows how important you are to me.”

She waddled towards Froggie, who was the closest, Joshie still wrapped around her middle.

Mikey caught his shoulders and shook her head. “I love you so much. No matter how old I get I am always going to need you, I’m always going to love you. You’re my Froggie.” That dumb nickname Robbie had coined what felt like a thousand years ago. “My Dad, my Brimi, my Bapuji.” She looked at each of them in turn.

“My _family_. Nothing is ever going to change that.”

Her Uncle Jim pressed a kiss to her cheek, his mustache tickling her. She stifled a laugh. She could see what his eyes were screaming: _This was what I wanted for you all along. I just wanted you to find someone who loves you as much as I do. And I think you have._

“But Sammy, I want to have a life with her. I love her. Why can’t I have both?”

Her four Dads, who still looked at each other like it was that first day all over again, a love that never ever died. And would never, as long as they were together.

How could she not want a future like that? When she’d been watching a healthy, loving relationship flourish all her life?

Her Dad caught her face with both hands.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to let you go.” He blinked those tears away and she pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“Good Dad, because I’m not _going_ anywhere.” His warm hug was the same he’d given her everyday since she was little, but it had so much more gravitas now.

“Lovely, now go get her.”

He smiled fondly as she squealed and dove back into the parlor again, only to find her Sammy sitting primly on the couch, as her Bunic examined the history behind the ring and talked to her. Her grandfather with his baby face and piercings, his crop-tops and tiny shorts in the middle of winter, sitting there telling her fiancé stories about the history of that little opal ring. Oh geez.

She hurriedly got in the middle of that.

“Hello, _Bunic!_ I see you and Sam have met!”

 _Fuck_ , her eyes searched Sammy’s, _did he tell you about the way he fucked most of the American Revolutionary army? Are you freaked out? Or was he still waxing poetic about Marie Antoinette?_

_(Her Froggie had to have gotten those slutty tendencies and androgyny from somewhere after all. Like how Grandpa Vlad had conquered most of the world with his genitals and still looked attractive to just about everybody)._

Sam’s gentle kiss to her lips was all the answer she ever needed. A silent message _that it was okay, Mikey. That it was all going to be okay. That they were going to be okay._

And that was all that ever mattered.

Even as a groggy bloody Phoebe ambled up the basement steps, looking a fair bit sick, asking with a painfully rough voice: “What did I miss?”

 

-X-

 

 _“I'm not impulsive_  
_(and yet I truly love you)_  
_I'm not deranged_  
_(I'd never ask that of you)_  
_But in this moment_  
_I feel I've changed._

 _I wanna climb Mt. Everest go to Mozambique_  
_I wanna be impulsive want to be unique_  
_Can you believe I mean it when you hear me shriek?_

 _I'm crazier than you_  
_I'm crazier than you_  
_And now I'll prove to you exactly how_  
_I'm crazier than you_  
_I'll do what you can do_  
_From here on in I give my solemn vow…”_

 


End file.
